Luck has landed in my life someone kind and cultured (and gorgeous) who takes me to the theatre. Now, for a gal like me who grew up convinced that Ghostbusters was the zenith of Western cultural expression, this is kind of a big shift. Opera and ballet were always closed books to me–and, honestly, they looked like the kind of leather-bound, gilt-edged books that you overlook on a shelf, because they’re fusty, dated, and probably a bit cringe-inducing were you really to get to grips with them.

I’d love to say that one night in the stalls and my outlook opened up like a telescope, but my philistinism goes deeper than that. Riding the train back from Madame Butterfly, the song I couldn’t get out of my head was “Teenage Dirtbag”. At Carmen I got pretty excited because the production featured a real live horse walking on stage. And this weekend, when I saw my first ballet – Manon – my gauche little mind went “Ooh! You know what? This is just like comics!”

I’d love someday to write something about a dream team made up of character archetypes from each genre–spaceman, cowpoke, gumshoe, swordsman, G.I., caped crusader. Or have I just spontaneously invented the Village People again?

I’ve been reviewing DC’s “new 52” for OneMetal.com – not all of them, but rather more than I’d normally have read – and it’s been a blast. There’s a few (Swamp Thing, Batman, Frankenstein, All-Star Western) that I missed and will go back for, and many I’ll get for a few more issues (Men of War, JLI, JL, Blue Beetle, BoP). But I’ve narrowed down my favourites to this top five:

5. Stormwatch. This book hit all the buttons that made me love Warren Ellis’s first crack at this title (and, moreso, The Authority): because it was grandiose, and because it was bonkers. I think there’s maybe something peculiarly British in that combination; whatever it is, Paul Cornell seems to have it down, and I’m excited to watch things in escalate in issue 2.

4. Animal Man. I had almost no expectations for this title, and picked it up on the strength of that creepy/awesome cover alone. Then, it was the eeriest, most strung-taut, most delicious slow burner of the lot. Plus it establishes that Dave Eggers exists in the new DCU, which makes me feel a whole lot better about the place.

3. Batwoman. This one, conversely, I’d been excited about for a long time; it didn’t disappoint. Who’d’ve thought a hard-boiled vibe would be a natural companion for an Art Nouveau style? Not me, but this book left me wishing Alphonse Mucha and Dashiell Hammett had finagled a team-up. They’d’ve made something just like this.

2. Wonder Woman. I always thought I’d never got into Wondy because the character’s not relatable, like there’s nothing more appealing than reminders of your own fascinating existence. Azzarello and Chiang make a virtue out of Wondy’s superhuman remoteness, while still keeping her warm and kind, and making the whole damn thing look five kinds of kickass in the meantime.

1. The Flash. Was this the most thought-provoking book in the bunch, or the smartest, or the highest concept? Nope, but it was the one DC book I read this month that made me feel like a fan. It’s brimming over with fun, with inventiveness, with this incredibly sweet sincerity that makes me punch the air and go “Yeah! Comics!” And I’ve been sick this week, so maybe it’s comfort I’ve been looking for, but right now this is all I want.

I’m working at the moment on the script for a graphic novel, in which a straight-up Golden Age comic takes something of an existential twist. (It’s a bit less obnoxious than it sounds.)

Best part of this is that I get to sit there making up new bonkers Golden Age-style shenanigans, complete with expositionary thought bubbles, and panel-bridging captions that read “SUDDENLY–“. I grew up on decompressed comics like The Authority, so to try squeezing an issue’s-worth of action into six equal-sized panels is an enjoyable exercise in literary bonsai.

Second best part is that I get to read lots of pre-Frederick Wertham comics for reference, including many from the treasure trove on Pappy’s Golden Age Comics Blog. Now, since I have a soft spot bigger than a lake of blancmanges for everyone who’s ever graced the Blue Beetle colours, I’m focusing on the adventures of Dan Garret(t): rookie cop/national superspy/budding Egyptologist (he had a lot of reboots, OK)? Dan’s tales are full of derring-do, a callousness toward villains that must’ve made the young Steve Ditko cry for joy, and the occasional charming nonsequitur. I like to think this panel, by the pseudonymous Charles Nicholas in Big 3 Comics #4 (1941), provides a fitting encomium for the whole Blue Beetle legacy:

So at 7am on Wednesday I made my maiden podcast appearance: talking to Geek in the City‘s Aaron Duran about (you’ve guessed it!) Womanthology. You can hear the show here, and it is well worth a listen, especially if you want to hear people with a problem with the new Spider-Man getting their backsides handed to them. And who doesn’t?

It was great fun being on the show: Aaron did a sterling job of making me feel at ease (if not quite curbing the nervous giggling). Listening to the rest of the broadcast, I wished timezones hadn’t kept me from talking with the other guys too. I vote we just lasso the UK and tow it to somewhere off the Newfoundland coast.

Maiden podcast appearance, but I am in fact a veteran of radio–inasmuch as I showed up several times on the university radio station, CUR-1350, on programmes hosted by college friends, in my capacity as a person with a voice. The most memorable of these programmes was “The Embarrassment of Riches”, so called because both hosts were named Rich: on that show I held a months-long unchallenged record as winner of the competition they held each episode. The competition, ingenious in its simplicity, consisted of Rich and Rich reading out a clue from the cryptic crossword and “listeners” phoning in to solve it, for which the prize was a Twirl. I won that damn Twirl for weeks on end. (A different Twirl each week, in fact. They were fairly big-hearted guys.) This was due in no small part to the fact that my record was literally unchallenged, because nobody else listened to the show and therefore made themselves eligible to (or interested in trying to) win the contest.

Hi folks. You may have seen me flailing incoherently and incomprehensibly lately. Or you may not have seen me at all. Either case has the same cause, which I’d like to explain: Womanthology.

Womanthology is a project I’ve been working on since early spring. It’s a 300-page comic book anthology, created entirely by women and coordinated by artist Renae De Liz. It features over 140 artists and writers, both professionals and beginners, and including me (with a four-page story; art by the excellent Thalia de la Torre). The book will be published by IDW, and it’ll be available to buy in comic shops. All profits go to charity via GlobalGiving.org.

As well as writing for the anthology, I’m running its admin operation. Up til now this has involved registering, advising, and pairing up our contributors, and fielding email enquiries about the project. Last Thursday we launched a Kickstarter fundraising campaign page, to secure the $25,000 we need to cover IDW’s printing costs and the expenses of shipping and fulfillment. It’s a big sum, but we all resolved to plug it as hard as we could to our friends and family, and hope for the best.

I haven’t done that til now because, in the 18 hours following launch, we smashed through our goal with the support of over 500 backers. As of right now, we’ve raised just under $50,000, from over 800 backers. (And then pretty much all of them apparently emailed us, which has occupied me ever since :D)

Story over, then, and all of you escaping without the aforementioned massive plug? You should be so lucky 🙂 Raising so much more than we planned has allowed us already to double our print run, meaning we’ll sell over 3,000 copies of the eventual book. If we can raise more still, we intend to publish another anthology showcasing work by people seeking their big break in comics — this one not restricted to female creators. Finally, if we can top $70,000, there are plans in the works to create an organization supporting artists and writers developing creator-owned work, infusing new life into comics and promoting independent creativity.

So, here it is, the self-seeking plug. If you’d like to get hold of some beautiful work by exciting new comics creators, if you’d like to score some cool rewards, and if you’d like to justify my profound neglect of my social life, outward appearance, and laundry, then I’d love for you to take a look at the Kickstarter page and see what we’ve been making.

And if you have any questions, go ahead, or ping them to womanthology@gmail.com – and I swear, I will get to them, should it make my fingers bleed!

I’m looking for an artist to pencil, ink, and (negotiably) colour* an original eight-page minicomic, for a one-off payment of US$150. This comic will be published online under a CC-BY-NC-SA license: it won’t ever be sold, so there’s no profit share available, but you will always be credited fully for your work, and will be free to distribute it as you like. I’m also hoping to give away printed copies of the comic at New York Comic Con this October, which means I’ll need all eight pages complete by the beginning of September.

The comic’s plot takes place between 1880 and 1911, with settings including an English coastal village and a ship at sea. I’d love to work with someone whose style is influenced by artists like Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, Alex Maleev, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Dave McKean. I’m thinking atmospheric watercolours, expressive faces, and impressionistic settings and effects. You’ll also need a good understanding of written English.†

Interested, or want to know more? Then I’d love to see a sample of your sequential work and hear a little bit about you: you can email me on ejne7comics AT gmail DOT com. Really looking forward to hearing from you.

Please feel free to reblog/pass this along to anyone you think might be interested.

*Or digital equivalent, if you don’t work with real pencils and ink
†If reading text is difficult for you, I’m more than happy to help make an audio version/find another way to present the script for you.